


Where Death Is A Common Prospect

by Bisabis



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Horror, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 09:31:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5122982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bisabis/pseuds/Bisabis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong in Sburb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Death Is A Common Prospect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leidolette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/gifts).



> For Leidolette!!  
> I'm a fan so writing this was pretty fun

Something was pulling at the back of Jade’s mind as soon as she stepped out onto the freshly melted landscape of the Land of Frost and Frogs. The box of the game had a slightly different logo than originally portrayed. It looked distorted, like it was a bootlegged copy with pixels, but the pixels were various shades of deep red and gray. She shrugged it off at the time because it actually was literally a bootleg sent to her by Dave via lotus.

She managed to melt the snow fairly easily, despite being by herself. She was the last to enter the game and knew the most about how to do stuff. Thankfully, someone had set up the equipment she needed to get started. She’ll have to thank her friends one-by-one until she finds the culprit.

She messages Rose first.

GG: hey, i got the equipment you set up for me!  
TT: My apologies Jade, but I am a little busy. Besides, I am not your server player. John is.  
TT: I’m sorry, I have to go now.

That was strange. Rose usually isn’t this curt. She’s still online, but all the messages she sends go ignored.

She contacts John next.

GG: john! you are supposed to be my server player!  
GG: john?  
GG: hellooooo???  
EB: newvfernvf  
EB: fenwiofer  
EB: mmmmmmmlllll  
GG: john thats not funny  
EB: hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  
GG: stop it!  
GG: youre just as bad as the trolls  
GG: but still thanks for setting up the alchemizer and stuff  
GG: i made a lot of cool things! :D

John disconnects. Now she’s starting to get worried. Did something happen to him?

Rose messages her again.

TT: Sorry I was so curt before. I was fighting.  
GG: imps?  
TT: No. Although I wish I were.  
TT: I was fighting the inhabitants of my planet.  
GG: what?  
TT: Apparently, I was wrong about them.  
TT: They are turtles, but they are also carnivores.  
GG: what happened??  
TT: They invaded my home and tried to eat me.  
GG: oh no!  
TT: Fortunately, I had created some powerful weapons earlier, so I’m fine.

Jade continues to roam farther and farther from her volcanic home, into the lush forest of trees and red flowers covering them. She has her rifle with her, so she isn’t defenseless. She tells Rose what happened with John and Rose is silent for a long time.

TT: I’m going to send you the code to my crystal ball. Hopefully, you have something to alchemize it with so you can see what I cannot.  
GG: why cant you see some things?  
TT: Well, I can’t see things as visual representations.  
TT: I have to ask it a question and it gives me an answer.  
GG: i see

She turns back and runs to her house. The silent forest now comes to life. The frogs are singing and she can hear the flapping of hummingbird wings. A lot of them.

She receives the code and combines them with her computer goggles. She asks them to show Rose. It shows Rose in her room, collapsed on her bed and breathing shallowly. She is covered in what looks like purple slime. Her room is a complete disaster and her door is barricaded by a dresser. The windows are blocked by what looks like a bunch of generic objects.

GG: i can see you!

Rose sits up and goes to her computer.

TT: Then you see my predicament.  
TT: Did you see John yet?  
GG: no not yet  
GG: im kind of scared to  
TT: If you want, I can ask my crystal ball if he is alive.  
GG: if??  
TT: I have to be objective.

Jade can see Rose’s nose has turned red. Her breaths have turned to shudders. She must be crying.

TT: I’m embarrassing myself.  
GG: no its okay  
GG: ill ask, okay?

She asks the goggles to show her John. What she sees makes her want to throw up. John is unrecognizable. He’s covered in his own blood and a couple of limbs are missing. She finds them being fought over by some giant salamander-looking animals. Two of them are yanking on opposite ends of John’s arm, lapping up the flesh that falls to the ground with their giant tongues. This is the first time that she has ever seen John’s face, and it’s dead.

Jade throws the goggles down and starts shutting herself in. She doesn’t know what kind of inhabitants roam her planet, but she doesn’t want to take any chances. When she finds a good place to stop, she shakily picks up her goggles and tells Rose the bad news.

She then sends Dave a message.

GG: dave! john is dead!!  
GG: i saw his body through the goggles i made from roses crystal ball  
GG: rose is okay but they were both attacked by the inhabitants on their planets  
GG: oh john…

She starts sobbing quietly, regretting the whole game. She doesn’t play much anyway, so why did she agree to this to begin with?

TG: jade oh thank fuck  
GG: dave!!!  
GG: youre alive!!!!!  
TG: of course i am  
TG: i have sword skills remember  
TG: but its broken now  
TG: i think im fucked  
GG: oh no! D:  
TG: i dont know what creatures the others have but mine are straightup gators  
TG: or crocodiles  
TG: they say nak a lot so im just going to go with nakodiles  
GG: i havent seen mine yet  
GG: but rose said hers were turtles and john has giant salamanders  
TG: rose sounds like she lucked out  
GG: i dont think so  
GG: i saw her and she looked really tired  
GG: and she was covered in purple stuff  
TG: ew  
GG: dave thats gross  
TG: im not trying to be gross  
TG: im pretty safe where im at though  
TG: im literally in the middle of buttfuck nowhere lavatown  
TG: its like the game took my entire building and plopped it right smack dab in the middle of some planet sized volcano  
TG: the sounds of creaking metal structures around here gives me a fucking heart attack with they clang together  
TG: makes me think the tower is being infiltrated  
TG: or ripped apart  
TG: i made a whole bunch of weapons and shit so i should be okay  
TG: and some time copies of myself  
TG: i should be fine  
TG: unless the nakodiles can swim through lava  
GG: oh wow thats a lot!  
GG: i just have one little mountain sized volcano and the rest was covered in snow before i figured out how to melt it  
TG: good for you  
TG: my little girl is growing up  
TG: excuse me while i shed a fatherly tear and then wipe it away in a dadly way  
GG: :D  
GG: im still worried about all this!  
TG: me too  
TG: this is some creepypasta shit  
TG: the gates literally glitch when something goes into it  
TG: calsprite is no help all he does is laugh  
TG: its like someone jacked my game and sent corrupted copies out to everyone else  
GG: who would do that?  
TG: i dont know  
TG: whoever it was had a sick sense of humor  
GG: tell me about it

Her pesterchum chimed. Great, one of the trolls is messaging her. She tells Dave to hang on and she answers the chat.

GG: what do you want!  
CC: )(ow are you liking the game?  
GG: i hate it!  
CC: W)(y?  
GG: my friend is dead and the others are going to be eaten by the natives of our planets!  
GG: that could have something to do with it!  
CC: W)(ale, Im sorry you feel t)(at way.  
GG: what are you talking about?  
CC: Not)(ing at all!  
CC: We just wanted to sea if t)(e software worked.  
GG: youre not making sense  
CC: Tide really LOV-E to )(elp, but t)(at would ruin t)(e fun!  
CC: Glub glub glub glub glub!  
GG: tell me! now!!  
CC: W)(oops, got to go!  
CC: Somet)(ing interesting is )(appening!  
CC: T)(is is just so -EXCITING!  
GG: wait!

And just like that, the troll signed off. What’s happening? Is it Dave or Rose? She asks the goggles to see Rose. She looks like she’s sleeping on her bed again. Jade makes sure she sees Rose breathing before changing to Dave.

Lousy, stupid trolls.

As soon as the picture comes up, she sees her own planet, Dave running up to her door. He is being chased by red alligators the size of John’s salamanders. She hurries over to it and starts taking down the taxidermied animals she used to block it. Dave spills in, shouting and defending himself with a broken sword. Jade shuts the door before any nakodiles get in.

“Sup?” he asks.

“How did-” Jade stutters.

“I went through the gate above my now absurdly tall apartment building and it brought me to a whole nest of nakodiles. It took about three of me, but I was lucky to get out of there, honestly. I went back through the gate and suddenly I was here.”

Jade sniffles and her vision blurs. Without thinking, she jumps up and hugs Dave around his neck. He stumbles back and they both fall into the pile of dead animals. He wraps his arms around her and they hold each other for a few minutes. Jade lets go and apologizes.

“I think you’re the first person I’ve met in real life after my grandpa died,” Jade says.

“That’s weird, being compared to an old man,” Dave says.

“You’re the only one who finds that weird, Dave,” Jade laughs. She then remembers John and sobers up. “We have to help Rose. She’s by herself.”

Dave nods. “Fine with me. How will we get there, though? I used a portal to get here and since John wasn’t your server player, the only portal is on my planet.”

Jade pauses, thinking. “Would the sprites be able to help us fight?”

“Let’s just say that Cal plus a crow equals a lot of bullshit,” Dave answers.

“I was only able to get Bec, and he speaks way too loud,” Jade says. She couldn’t prototype anything else in time. Was that why all this was happening? Because she only prototyped one thing? She brings her knees to her chin. “This is all my fault,” she says under her breath, too low for Dave to hear.

They’re running out of options. Then something pounds on the door. Then again. Something heavy, like a nakodile is throwing itself against the door. Then the windows start tapping.

“Jade, please tell me the inhabitants of this planet are cuddly.”

“I actually haven’t seen any.”

Dave’s eyebrows disappear under his sunglasses.

“If anything, they’re harmless hummingbirds?” Jade shrugs.

The pounding on the door gets louder and heavier and more frequent until it suddenly stops. The tapping continues. Jade picks up her goggles and asks to see outside.

Every single nakodile that came through with Dave are now dead. Or at least their mangled bodies implied it.

“Oh, no,” Jade mutters.

“‘Oh no,’ what?”

“There are hundreds of them!” She tries not to panic, but the fact that the brightly colored frogs are the spitting images of the poison dart frog are not helping. The nakodiles must have touched them. Or eaten them.

“Hundreds of what, Jade?” Dave is growing increasingly nervous by the tone of his voice.

Jade swallows and takes off the goggles. “Poison dart frogs.” He stares at her blankly. “The most poisonous frogs on earth.”

Dave lets out a breath. “Shit.” He runs a hand over his mouth briefly muffling his voice. “We’re fucked.”

“Yep.”

The tapping on the windows, as Jade sees now as she looks out the window, are the hummingbirds trying to get in. Some of them have killed themselves crashing into the glass, she can see their bodies on the windowsill. Grandpa made them hurricane-proof, so they’re not getting in anytime soon. Jade doesn’t know what’s more distressing: the poisonous frogs outside, or the the hummingbirds wanting to peck them to death.

“Hey Jade, before we die, I just wanted to say that I’ve always had a crush on you,” Dave blurts out suddenly.

Jade turns to Dave in shock, her face turning red. She has felt the same way for a while, but right now, she doesn’t want to die!

She laughs nervously and says, “Me, too.” She takes his hand. “But we’re going to get out of this alive, okay?” They clasp their other hands together, so that four hands are between them, clutching for dear life.

Dave doesn’t answer. Instead, he pulls her into a hug. She begins to realize why he didn’t answer.

He is the last Dave left. All those time powers he had developed are no help now. How old is this Dave? Is he hours older than when they started? Days? Weeks? Months? She doesn’t know. What she does know is that there must be a lot of dead Daves if he’s giving up as soon as they meet.

She pushes herself away and puts her hands on his cheeks. She lifts up his sunglasses so she can get a better view of the rare somber expression of Dave Strider. She pulls his face close to hers and softly kisses his lips.

Then, all hell breaks loose. Jade hopes that the frogs get to her first. Because then, she wouldn’t have to feel the pain not of her own death, but of Dave’s.

* * *

 

Minutes earlier, Rose sent a message to Jade.

TT: I don’t know if you are getting this message, but I just wanted to let you know that even though I have never specifically said that I cared about you, I do.  
TT: Well, did.  
TT: I asked the crystal ball if you were going to die.  
TT: It told me yes.  
TT: Then I asked if you were going to be alone.  
TT: It said no.  
TT: I was relieved to hear that at least.  
TT: I didn’t have to ask who it was going to be with. There are only three of us left, and I don’t see any signs of escaping my own room anytime soon.  
TT: I saw my mother escape.  
TT: Who knows where she is now?  
TT: I’ve seen a lot of my alternate versions of myself who have ceased to exist, and not one of them were as bad as this doomed session we are in.  
TT: Personally, I’m glad because no other alternate can have it worse than us.  
TT: They’re almost through my barricades now.  
TT: It sounds like they’re eating their way through.  
TT: I’m going to hold out as long as I can before we officially cease to exist.  
TT: At least, I hope that’s the way it works.  
TT: I don’t want to die, Jade.  
TT: Neither you nor Dave are responding.  
TT: I’m going to assume he made it to you.  
TT: I lost connection when he jumped through the gate to your planet.  
TT: He mentioned glitches so that might have been it.  
TT: There is a hole in my door now.  
TT: They make no other noise but chewing.  
TT: It’s disturbing to say the very least.  
TT: But I will mark these words as my last:  
TT: I’m sorry. This is no one’s fault, but as my seer powers develop, I have realized that there were times I could have prevented this. If I took the time to explain to my own friends first instead of looking to the future, no one would have died. I shouldn’t blame myself, but I will. Maybe this will serve as a warning to my alternate selves. I am out of time now. Goodbye.

 

 


End file.
